14.4 Mechanisms of other antimicrobial drugs  (Page 9/15)

Key concepts and summary

• Because fungi, protozoans, and helminths are eukaryotic organisms like human cells, it is more challenging to develop antimicrobial drugs that specifically target them. Similarly, it is hard to target viruses because human viruses replicate inside of human cells.
• Antifungal drugs interfere with ergosterol synthesis, bind to ergosterol to disrupt fungal cell membrane integrity, or target cell wall-specific components or other cellular proteins.
• Antiprotozoan drugs increase cellular levels of reactive oxygen species, interfere with protozoal DNA replication (nuclear versus kDNA, respectively), and disrupt heme detoxification.
• Antihelminthic drugs disrupt helminthic and protozoan microtubule formation; block neuronal transmissions; inhibit anaerobic ATP formation and/or oxidative phosphorylation; induce a calcium influx in tapeworms, leading to spasms and paralysis; and interfere with RNA synthesis in schistosomes.
• Antiviral drugs inhibit viral entry, inhibit viral uncoating, inhibit nucleic acid biosynthesis, prevent viral escape from endosomes in host cells, and prevent viral release from infected cells.
• Because it can easily mutate to become drug resistant, HIV is typically treated with a combination of several antiretroviral drugs , which may include reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, integrase inhibitors , and drugs that interfere with viral binding and fusion to initiate infection.

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